Phoenixville School District keeps its solicitor  for now

PHOENIXVILLE — With the contract up on Fox Rothschild LLP as the district’s solicitor and legal counsel, a vote to change to a new firm did not pass at the Aug. 15 Phoenixville Area School Board meeting.

Needing five votes to officially change the solicitor, those on the board in favor of a switch could only muster four and Fox Rothschild was retained by default on the previous contract.

However, the issue can be brought up again in September, according to board Present Joshua Gould.

“It can come back again,” he said.

“If we don’t get five (votes)?” board member Kevin Pattinson asked.

“Yes,” Gould replied. “As long as someone wants to keep doing it.”

The solicitor and legal retainer contract for the district was up and voting on who would get the contract again is standard, according to Sandra Claus, Phoenixville Area School District’s community relations coordinator.

Three firms were considered for the contract, including Fox Rothschild, based in Exton, Kegel Kelin, Almy and Lord LLP, out of Lancaster City, and Wisler Pearlstine LLP, in Blue Bell and Newtown.

In the meeting, the school board first decided to nominate the firms it wished to vote on.

Fox Rothschild was nominated by board member Paul Slaninka, seconded by Betsy Ruch.

Board member Kenneth Butera nominated Kegel, Kelin, Almy and Lord, which was seconded by Pattinson.

Wisler Pearlstine received no nominations.

When it came time to vote, Fox Rothschild received “yes” votes from Slaninka, Ruch and Irfan Kahn with “no” votes from Butera, Pattinson, Gould and Dan Cushing. The vote for Kegel, Kelin, Almy and Lord was exactly a mirror of the Fox Rothschild vote.

Board members Jan Potts and David Ziev were not present at the meeting.

With neither firm receiving five votes, Fox Rothschild will continue with the district under the old contract unless a motion is brought up again in the future to either award Fox Rothschild a new contract or change the retainer firm completely.

After the meeting, Butera explained his nomination of Kegel, Kelin, Almy and Lord.

“I think it’s time for a change in light of the Noyes decision and how the zoning was handled in East Pikeland,” Butera said.

The school district sued its former superintendent David Noyes for breach of contract in relation to the abandonment of a property in East Pikeland that the new East Pikeland Elementary School was to be built.

Late last year, the district was “surprised” by the rejection of plans to extensively renovate East Pikeland Elementary by the township zoning board, which ruled the project was too expansive for the neighborhood it was in.

Although Butera advocated a change, he said “Fox Rothschild is a great firm. They’ve served us well.”

Slaninka made the motion to keep Fox Rothschild and Ron Williams, the solicitor.

“As I said publicly, Fox Rothschild has a local presence,” Slaninka told The Mercury Tuesday. “Ron Williams is a taxpayer in the community and a parent. In my three years as board president, he was always there for me and the district.”

Williams’ loyalty has also been appreciated.

“While we were in transition through a very tough period of the school district, he sat in the auditorium through school board workshops and board meetings for free for years keeping watch over us,” Slaninka said. “(Fox Rothschild) got us through the middle school construction when we had a problem.”

Ultimately, Slaninka thinks knowing what service the district has is better than going with an entity the board is not intimately familiar with from out of the area.

“Just because someone interviews well doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to provide the services we already get and already known about with Fox Rothschild,” he said. “I think it would be a risk to go with someone else that we don’t know.”